


To Be Unmade

by eternaleponine



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-25
Updated: 2012-07-25
Packaged: 2017-11-10 16:33:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was sent to kill me.  He made a different call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be Unmade

**Author's Note:**

> This is definitely based on movie canon (and my own head canon). I have no idea about the comic canon, to be honest, so it's entirely possible that I'm getting things all wrong. Hopefully it's enjoyable anyway. :-)

_He was sent to kill me. He made a different call._

*

"Target is in sight," Barton breathed, knowing that it would be picked up and transmitted back to the ones who were responsible for extracting him if it came to that. He kept his eye on his mark, a young woman with flaming red hair, a pretty face but a hard set to her jaw, and one of the bloodiest records he'd ever seen.

According to the file S.H.I.E.L.D. had compiled, she was a Soviet spy and assassin, and everything about her was deadly. He'd been given this assignment because he didn't have to get close to take out his targets, and that was the only thing that was likely to keep him alive. Anyone who got close was likely to be dead before they had a chance to so much as lay a finger on her.

"Do you have a shot?" Coulson's voice in his ear. Reassuring to know that he wasn't alone, but irritating, too, because he _was_. It wasn't Coulson who had to decide where to aim the arrow. It wasn't Coulson who had to draw and release and watch its trajectory, watch to make sure that it hit, watch a life end. 

He tried to think about her file, about all of the lives that were ended prematurely at her hands. How many of them deserved it? It couldn't possibly be all of them, and he tried to focus on that. She was a threat, and the threat had to be neutralized.

"Do you have a shot?" his handler repeated. 

"Not yet."

A nice turn of phrase, wasn't it? Neutralize the target. But that's not what he was doing. She wasn't being neutralized, she was being terminated. Her life was ending, and what kind of a life had it been? Her file had implied that she had been raised to this, to espionage and murder. She had been molded from childhood into a weapon, and there was someone, somewhere, pulling the trigger.

He watched her movements, but mostly he watched her face. It was a mask, cool and unemotional, betraying nothing. But what went on behind those eyes? He couldn't believe that she was a stone-cold killer, despite the laundry list of assassinations under her belt. There had to be something more.

A door opened.

He didn't know what was being said; they spoke in a language he didn't know. Russian, probably, but he could be wrong. The exchange was brief, and then the man left, and it was as if this young woman who was called the Black Widow shrank into herself. Clint watched as her expression changed. There was a flicker of... something. Something else. Something he hadn't seen before in her. Fear, followed by anger, and then the mask was back in place. 

In that moment, he knew that she was human after all. He couldn't just put her down like a rabid dog. Those were his orders, but he couldn't follow through. He knew that he would pay for his decision, but he would deal with that later.

"You're not going to get a better chance." Coulson's voice through his earpiece, a hint of impatience creeping in. Could the man sense his hesitation? It wouldn't surprise him, really. The agent seemed to have a sixth sense about these kinds of things.

Clint pulled an arrow from his quiver, nocked it and drew. He looked down the sight, aimed for the hollow of her throat. He forced himself to keep breathing, to keep steady as the rest of the world faded away and it was just himself, his bow, and the target. 

He loosed the arrow and watched it find its mark, embedded deep in the wall a few feet past the Soviet spy's shoulder. He saw her flinch as it vibrated, having come too close for comfort, and yet she stood there unscathed. Her eyes raked the upper reaches of the room, trying to find him, but he was buried in shadows.

"Target is aware of my presence," he breathed. "Request to abort." It was a gamble. Now she knew that someone was after her, but that was his intention. Now she would be on edge. Now she would be looking, but that was the point. He had to get her a message. The hard part would be staying alive long enough to deliver it.

*

"What happened, Barton?"

It should have been a simple question, but it wasn't. Far from it. Clint couldn't really explain what had happened, because so much of it was just a gut feeling, and he suspected that Director Fury wasn't really interested in gut feelings, even though half the time they had little more to go on than that. How could he explain it in a way that the other man would understand?

"I missed. Sir."

"You don't miss. You never miss. You have told all of us on more than one occasion that you never miss. So what happened?"

 _I missed on purpose,_ he thought, but he couldn't say that. Except keeping secrets from the man that he ultimately answered to probably wasn't the best idea. He should have had an explanation planned out before this meeting; he knew it was coming the minute that he failed to execute his orders. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"I'm waiting," Fury said, his one good eye boring into Clint. "This better be good."

"I missed," he said again. "That's all."

A vein throbbed at Fury's temple. "She's not going to be easy to track down again. Next time, you don't miss."

Next time. Next time, he would have a plan.

*

She stared at the arrow, embedded several inches into the wall just past where she'd been standing. She hadn't seen it coming, hadn't heard anything to betray that there was anyone around, and that was unusual, and unnerving.

 _You need to get out of your own head_ , she berated herself. Getting lost in her own thoughts and concerns was obviously making her sloppy, and sloppy got you killed. And whatever else she wanted, she didn't want to die. Maybe she wasn't happy being someone's pawn, a tool to be used however the buyer saw fit. Whatever the job called for, she did, and it was starting to wear at her. Cracks were starting to form, deep down, and it was only a matter of time before they made it to the surface and started to show, if they weren't already.

She pulled the arrow from the wall, examining it carefully, deft fingers tracing over the shaft and the tip, brushing against the fletching. There was nothing extraordinary about it that she could tell. She wasn't an expert, of course, but she knew weapons in general, and it was obvious that this arrow was well-made. Perfectly crafted... and perfectly shot. To miss. Because she hadn't seen it coming. She hadn't moved. If the person firing it had wanted to hit her, they would have. They hadn't.

Why? Who, and _why_?

No one she knew used arrows as their weapon of choice. No one she'd even heard of. If it was meant as a warning, it wasn't a very good one, because she had no idea what she was being warned about. Was she supposed to do something? Not do something? She could drive herself crazy trying to figure it out, but what good would it do?

Someone had their eyes on her; that much was clear. Someone good, so she had to be better. She had to make sure that it didn't happen again, because they might not decide to miss a second time.

*

"Are you _insane_?" Coulson asked. "Agent Barton, what you're proposing is quite possibly the most—"

"Crazy, irresponsible, badly-planned, badly-thought-out, stupid, etcetera thing you've ever heard. Yeah, you've said that already. Twice," Clint said. "So what?"

He could see the muscle at the corner of his handler's jaw twitching. He could see the man fighting the urge to either press his face into his hands or pinch the bridge of his nose to stave off the headache that was Agent Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye. 

"Why do you even think this is a possibility?" Coulson asked finally. 

"I don't know," Clint admitted. "It's just a feeling."

"A feeling."

"Yeah, a feeling. A feeling that she's not happy where she is, and maybe she'd be ready to move on, if someone gave her the chance."

"And what is this feeling based on? Because if we're going to propose this to Fury, we need something to go on beyond just your gut, Barton." 

"Just... I saw her argue with someone. Someone who was probably in charge of her, but I could be wrong. And when he left, she just... she looked lost for a second. Lost and angry. Like... like someone in a trap. Someone who's in too deep and knows it and wants out but can't see her way clear on her own." Or maybe he was projecting. Maybe he was putting too much into one tiny moment that he'd witnessed. 

Maybe Coulson was right, and he had completely lost his mind.

"I think you're projecting," Coulson said, as if he was some kind of shrink. 

Clint couldn't help wondering if he'd been forced to take some kind of psychology course before being put in charge of other agents. He knew that he wasn't the only one with a messed-up past. Well-adjusted people didn't become spies and assassins, even for the greater good and life, liberty and the American way, or whatever he was working towards. He never really thought much about it; it was a job, and it was a better job than being a mercenary, so he kept on.

"Maybe. Does that mean I'm wrong?" 

"Maybe." Coulson sighed. "You know what's at stake here if you're wrong, don't you?"

"My job," Clint said. "My life. The usual."

"How can you be so blasé?"

"Because I'm not worried about it," Clint said. "I'm not wrong." It was a lie, or at least the part about not being worried was. But he was sure that he'd seen something, and that it hadn't just been his imagination. "If we _could_ get her... They're all so concerned about how good she is and the fact that she's working for the other side. Why not try and get her on ours?"

"They don't earn loyalty over there," Coulson said. "They breed it. They beat it in. It's not like here."

"And what kind of human being wants to live a life where they have no say in what happens to them? Don't people want the chance to be free?" Clint argued. "Why would she be any different? Kids rebel, right? Maybe she's at that point now."

"She's not a kid."

"Late bloomer."

Silence stretched between them, heavy on both of their shoulders. Finally Coulson threw up his hands. " _You_ bring it to Fury. _You_ convince him. If you can manage that... well, we'll see."

"In other words, you don't think I can do it," Clint said with a smirk. "But you forget – I never miss."

*

Even when he wasn't there to kill, Clint sought the high ground, wanting to get the lay of the land and observe from afar before stepping into the situation. His stomach was in knots, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore the feeling that this had been a huge mistake.

Somehow he'd convinced Fury. He didn't even remember what words he'd used, what bullshit he'd spewed to make him believe that this was not a suicide mission, but here he was. He knew that the one they called Black Widow was on a mission of her own, and they'd decided to let her complete it before stepping in, because her target was someone that was no good to anyone of any nation. 

He watched her move through the crowd; a party of some sort, a gathering of people who believed themselves cultured. Art opening or theater after party or who knew what. He didn't care. It didn't matter. All that mattered was getting to the Widow before she got away, and getting a word in her ear, the right word, to keep her from disappearing. 

"I'm moving in," he breathed, making his way down to the floor and working himself into the scene, trying to remain unobtrusive, which largely meant keeping his mouth shut. He wasn't the only American here, and he tried to make a note of any faces he recognized, so there were others speaking English, but more than half of the conversation was completely incomprehensible to him, and that was never a safe situation to be in.

And something felt off. He couldn't pinpoint exactly what, but from the minute he descended from his perch to mingle, his skin was prickling with a sense of unease. Something was just not right, and it made him hold back, keeping to the periphery but careful to keep a sightline on his target.

He saw her moving towards her mark, and edged past a few people to follow. She took a step, someone slid into the place she had just been occupying, and he lost her. In that moment, it all fell apart. 

He couldn't see what had happened. He only heard the shouting, saw people suddenly trying to flee. When he finally caught sight of her, she was on the ground, conscious but not moving, except her eyes darting side to side. 

He yanked his bow from where it had been concealed under his jacket, a quick snap of his wrist making the arms click into place. He drew an arrow from a special pocket in the seam of his pants (not comfortable, but needs must) and aimed, standing over her so that no one could come near her.

Only one man was stupid enough to keep advancing, and he died with an arrow straight through his throat. Hawkeye drew again, but no one seemed inclined to repeat the man's mistake. He crouched down and picked the woman's body up, mumbling an apology as he hefted her over his shoulder and beat as hasty a retreat as he could manage considering the awkwardness of carrying another person while wielding a bow and arrow.

"She's injured," he said. "Get us out of here."

*

She didn't even need to check to know that she'd been stripped of all of her weapons, and her clothing for that matter. She had on a hospital gown, and her entire midsection was wrapped in bandages. It hurt to move, but she tried anyway, swinging her feet over the side of the bed. Her head swam and she almost fell back against the pillow. She began to disconnect tubes, wishing for a gun when the monitors started beeping.

The door opened, but the person who came in wasn't a doctor. He also, she suspected, wasn't supposed to be here, from the way that he glanced behind him before closing the door and moving quickly to the machines to switch them off. "I wouldn't do that if I was you," he said. 

His face seemed familiar, but for a moment she couldn't quite place it. Then she realized that this must be the man who'd gotten her out of that party, where things had taken a nasty turn that she somehow hadn't foreseen, and she'd been caught unaware. The man with the bow, who'd defended her when she was down.

And, most likely, the one who'd had the chance to kill her and hadn't. 

"Where am I?"

"I'm not at liberty to say," he said, with the faintest of smiles. "But you know that."

She did, but it had been worth a try. "American?"

"I am," he said.

"Who are you?"

"You can call me Barton."

She didn't like the way he looked at her. It wasn't like most men did. Most men looked at her and saw a pretty face and a body that made it hard for them to pull their minds out of the gutter. Others, those that knew better, looked at her with fear. He didn't do either. He looked at her like... like he could see through her. Like he could read her thoughts written on the back of her skull when he looked into her eyes. She looked away.

"Who are you?"

She glanced at him. "You already know who I am."

He shook his head. "No. I know what your file says. I don't know who you are."

 _Neither do I._ It had been finding out that the past she had believed had been hers had all been lies, forced into her along with drugs to make her susceptible to the brainwashing she'd been subjected to, that had started her thinking about getting out. Now here she was, out, but how could she know that this was any better? 

"Why don't we start with your name?" Barton asked. 

Even that... even that she couldn't be sure was hers. Even that might be a lie. "Romanova," she said finally. "Natalia Romanova." That much he might already know, so there was no point in lying. 

"Natalia," he said. "I'm Clint, then."

She nodded. "Are you supposed to be interrogating me?" she asked. She wasn't interested in playing games. She wanted to know where she stood. She had to make a plan.

"No. I'm not even supposed to be here." He shrugged, smiling crookedly at her, and it was such a guileless look she almost believed it was genuine. 

"Why are you here then?"

"To make sure you're okay." He leaned against the foot of her bed, trying to catch her eye. "I _did_ risk my life for you, y'know."

"Why?"

"Because I thought you might be ready for a second chance."

She looked up, studying him, looking for the lie. She couldn't find one, but maybe that just meant he was good at hiding it. It was something that could be taught, after all. She'd excelled at those lessons, but then she'd learned from the best, hadn't she? 

"Are you hungry?" he asked when no response was forthcoming.

"I wouldn't eat anything given to me by people whose agenda I don't know," she replied. "You know that."

This time he laughed. "Yeah, all right. But you'll need to eat eventually. No one's going to try to kill you here," he said. "Except me. It's my assignment, after all. But I don't think it's going to come to that. Do you?"

She snorted. She couldn't help it. "What kind of a question is that to ask the person you're supposed to be terminating?"

He grinned. "Hey, I thought it was a pretty good one!" 

She shook her head. "You're insane."

"So I've been told," he said. "Repeatedly, by several people. But I'm still alive, and so are you, so maybe there's a method to my madness after all."

He winked, and she just shook her head. But when food was brought, she ate it, and she didn't die.

*

"She wants out," Clint told Fury, sitting down in front of his desk and stretching his legs out in front of him. "She doesn't know how to say it, but I can sense it. She wants out, but she's afraid to want it, I think."

"That's not good enough," Fury said. "She needs to say it. Until she does, and even after she does, she's a liability, and she needs to stay where she is."

"She's going crazy in there!" Clint protested. "There's only so long you can keep a person locked up before they start to lose it, and whatever good will she might have toward us starts to evaporate."

The director leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed. "What do you think we should do then? Since you think you're such an expert."

"Just let her out. Under guard. Let me bring her to the gym or something, just to give her something to do. We can clear the whole path. But we have to show a little bit of trust, or how is she going to trust us? People have a tendency to live up to expectations," he said, his tone insistent, but with an edge of caution. He knew he might be overstepping. "If we treat her like a criminal, she has no reason not to act like one."

"Except to gain our trust." 

Clint snorted. "She could behave perfectly, and you'd still suspect she was up to something," he said. "You know that." Words that Natalia said often enough to him when he asked a stupid question. It had become almost a joke between them. 

"All right, yeah," Fury admitted. "You shouldn't trust her as much as you do."

"Nope," Clint said. "But that ain't gonna stop me."

*

Clint watched Natalia's face as she took in the expanse of the gym. It wasn't a look of awe; it was pure calculation. Where could someone hide? Where were the exits? What could be used as an impromptu weapon? They'd done their best to make sure there wasn't anything obviously lethal to hand, but there was always a chance.

"Come on," he said. "You've been lying around too long. You might get soft."

"Never," she replied. 

He quickly learned just how soft she wasn't, even just recovered from a fairly seriously wound. She tossed him around like a ragdoll until he started to get her measure, and the odds evened out. By the end, they were both sweaty and breathing hard, but he thought he saw the faintest of smiles flickering at the corners of her mouth. 

"Time's up," one of the guards called. "Shower and let's get back."

The hint of expression was gone as quickly as it had begun, so that he almost doubted it had been there at all.

*

She'd gained their trust, a little, and as soon as she'd seen the chance, she'd taken advantage of it. No one was dead. No one was even badly hurt. But she was free, and she was going home. The only thing she regretted, just a little, was that she had to leave Barton behind, when he'd done all that he could for her during her stay with the Americans. She hadn't told him that she was leaving; he would have tried to stop her. She'd just left.

Out of sight, out of mind, she'd thought, but she'd been wrong. She kept thinking about Barton, about the kindness he'd showed her, the loyalty, the trust, when he had had no reason to give her any of those things, and every reason not to. She owed him her life, and that was a debt she could never repay.

And now she might be throwing it away. 

Now, she might have made the biggest mistake of her life.

"Welcome home, Natasha." 

The words sent a chill down her spine, but she smiled and nodded. "It's good to be back." Here, she knew where she stood. Here, she was on solid ground. She knew her place, and... it chafed. She'd walked right back into bondage, into being a puppet for a cause that she could no longer make herself believe in, now that she knew everything was a lie, and that there was another way for things to be.

At night, she hardly slept, because when she dreamed, she dreamed of freedom, and that was a dangerous thing. Leaving here, going back to the Americans, would she really be free? Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses... Wasn't that how it went? But she was poor, and she was just one woman.

But she was tired. She was so very tired.

One night, something inside her snapped. She pulled a trigger and ended a life, and decided she was done. There was too much blood on her hands, and for what? These weren't her enemies. These weren't her friends. She had plenty of the former, now, and very few of the latter. Maybe only one.

She ran. Quickly, quietly, disappearing in the way that only a master spy and assassin could manage. When she was safely away, she sent a message, just five words that would change everything:

_Does the offer still stand?_

*

_She looks... beaten,_ Clint thought. _Not physically, but mentally. Defeated._ He had no doubt, though, that her core of steel remained intact, and that it would get her through. Maybe it was a good thing, having her come in slightly humbled. Or maybe it was just that she trusted him enough to let her exhaustion show.

He set a mug of coffee by her hands where they sat loose and empty on the table. She wrapped graceful fingers around it, lifting it to her lips and blowing on the surface. He'd fixed it the way he remembered she liked it – cream, no sugar – and he thought he saw a flicker of something – pleasure, maybe – when she noticed.

"It won't be easy," he said. "You know that."

She nodded. "I know."

"They didn't take it well when you disappeared."

"I didn’t' think they would." She looked up at him, holding his gaze.

Clint knew she was waiting for him to ask, but he couldn't tell if she wanted him to. Still, she would have to have an answer, if not for him then for Fury.

"Go ahead," she said softly, sipping her coffee. "Ask."

"Why?"

The corner of her mouth curled, almost a smile, and some of the ice in her eyes seemed to melt. "I needed to make a choice," she said after a moment. "I had to know it was the right one."

Clint could understand it, although he didn't want to. He wanted to ask why she hadn't know it was the right choice without going back and risking everything. He wanted to ask why she'd left without telling him. She could have at least told _him_. 

But it wasn't about him. It hadn't been personal, and she'd come back.

He waited for her to finish her coffee, letting silence fall between them, but it wasn't an uncomfortable one. There just wasn't anything more to say.

*

It became a pattern. Minutes and hours in which they sat in quiet, near each other but not touching, because he knew that the two worst things to do would be to leave her alone or to make her talk. She had enough of that with Fury.

*

She felt like a sweater, unraveling in slow motion. Layer by layer they stripped her down, and she let them. She would never forget her past; that wasn't the point. But to become someone else, she ahd to let go of who she'd been. To be remade she had to be unmade first.

At the end of the day, though, she felt raw, like an open wound that wasn’t' being given the chance to heal. She looked down at her hands, half expecting to see them coated in crimson, but no. They were just hands, smooth and unblemished.

She heard him approach, but didn't look up. He knelt in front of her and wrapped her hands in his. Her fingers twitched, but she didn't pull away and he didn't let go. His hands were warm and strong, but there was no threat in him. Not for her. Not now.

"It gets better," he murmured.

She glanced up, met his eyes, and allowed herself to believe him.


End file.
